I trail my fingers over the smooth wood of the bannister, the wood warm beneath my cold fingers, almost as if it’s still alive, the air around me so icy cold. The feel of the wood under my fingertips feels familiar, an action I have carried out a hundred times a day. I feel as if I should know this place inside out, but it is strange, unnerving, as if I have walked through the looking glass and I half wish I hadn’t come here. I don’t recognize the shadows on the wall of the bedroom in front of me as I reach the threshold, my hand pushing the door all the way open, even as they rearrange themselves to form some sort of picture on the otherwise bland walls.

The smell in the air catches at the back of my throat, and I raise my hand, covered with the sleeve of my shirt, to my nose, the thin cotton doing a poor job of blocking it out. It is thick, laying heavy in the air, like a layer of oil on water. My temples thud, sharp pain pulsing through my head and my stomach does a long, low swoop, my mouth filling with saliva. I struggle to keep focus on my thoughts, on what I am about to do. Fog descends and I fumble wildly for the doorframe to steady myself. I’m not sure what I am about to do, but I know it has to be done. That this is the only solution. The baby shifts and mutters, his tiny fists punching the air, and I close my eyes.

Chapter Eight

Rav doesn’t come home until long after the children are asleep and I am in bed. I mumble at him as the mattress dips with his weight, waiting for him to ask how my day was, but he doesn’t. He slides into bed, landing a kiss on my hair before he rolls over without a word. Inhaling, I open my mouth to speak, to tell him about what I saw in the woods, but before I can say anything his breath rasps in a light snore and I close my mouth again. With the faint thud of a headache starting behind my eyes, I will sleep to pull me under, before waking two hours later with Leo’s cries, my nerve endings prickling with the remnants of the dream. The same dream. I shiver as I hold the baby close, Rav still snoring beside me. I can see myself, my feet on the stairs, knowing that the children are asleep above me, knowing that once I reach that room something is going to happen, something awful. But it’s not me, I think, letting my forehead wrinkle in a frown, that nagging feeling still in the pit of my stomach. Whoever it is, it’s not me.